Curt Doolittle

Category: Business, Organization, and Management

  • FOLLOWERS: STEP IN. (For long time followers: Actually, it is extremely importan

    FOLLOWERS: STEP IN.

    (For long time followers: Actually, it is extremely important to me that you (and others) take over arguments. (a) it makes us a stronger brand, (b) it builds your skills, and (c) it distributes the cost of our communication campaign. So don’t feel timid about stepping in. And don’t feel timid if I supply additional info. Most of the time you will basically help filter and educate, and if you get a real thinker like you are (it’s rare) that’s a better use of my time. only advice is: rely on propertarianism, not some bastardization of it. 😉 )

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-12 12:25:00 UTC

  • RULE OF THUMB OF ADVERTISING ***All good advertising is very simple: the truth s

    RULE OF THUMB OF ADVERTISING

    ***All good advertising is very simple: the truth spoken elegantly and succinctly is and always will be the best method of advertising.

    Unfortunately too few people know how to speak truthfully and too few products, services, and information, can survive in the market if they are sold truthfully.

    Ergo: if something is advertised other than truthfully, elegantly, and succinctly, either you should not buy from the people who sell it, or you should not buy what they are selling, or both.***

    (from elsewhere)

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-09 13:27:00 UTC

  • “If you were given a new position as head of a large, multi-national company, wh

    —“If you were given a new position as head of a large, multi-national company, which was still around in spite of poor to abysmal management over the course of 100 or so years, how long do you think it would take you to turn that company around and set it on the right track?

    Assuming you have the knowledge and acumen for the job from years of experience successfully running other, smaller, but similar companies.

    Do you think you’d make any mistakes along the way? Do things that seem like mistakes to the casual observer, who doesn’t have your same experience, information, and understanding of the situation?

    How long before you start to see real results?

    Two years?

    Five years?

    Ten?

    Twenty?

    What about two and a half months?”—Danny O’Quillinan

    In my experience, almost always, the problems are :

    1) Debt that can’t be exited.

    2) Maximized rent-seeking that can’t be exited. (pensions etc)

    3) A board or management that can’t be exited, and Incentives that are perversely against the interests of the business.

    4) Capital Equipment or Information Systems, Contractual relations that are deadly but extremely difficult to change without causing even worse damage to the business immediately.

    5) Poor quality employees that cannot be trained to compete in the new market.

    6) The loss of the upper 10-20% of the best talent leaving you with little to work with – talent is the most scarce transitional capital.

    7) Inability to attract the talent necessary to restore competitive excellence.

    8) You’ve been hired too late, and they either want a fall guy, an organized end to the business, a sale to a competitor at fire sale prices. Or they’re stupid and they think a miracle will happen.

    The principle problem in restoring a company is whether you are able to bring in enough talent to make the change with a good enough plan, and enough capital to do it with, and have enough time to do it with, and if once you achieve it, the end product is worth more than what you have already.

    I have never seen a company I could not turn around assuming I had those options. The truth is that in the company, and in all companies, everyone or at least a lot of them, know what to do, but there are some sort of political or economic barriers that prevent them from doing it.

    Why did Microsoft displace IBM, but google and apple and sun fail to displace microsoft given all msft’s series of failures? the error was on both sides. Would you rather have 80% of your revenue dependent upon the iPhone or Windows+Office? (Samsung is a better phone btw).

    Why did nokia fail and iphone/samsung eat their lunch?

    Why is search a dead tennis ball and Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon together have replaced Sears (and its imitators)?

    Why did amazon succeed and barnes and noble (and everyone else) fail?

    When the Xbox team was started why did they demand separate offices away from the rest of campus, and why did that product (sort of) succeed where most other microsoft initiatives fail?

    I can usually diagnose a company in two weeks, and with certainty in thirty days. The problems are not hard.

    If you can’t turn it in two to three years you probably can’t turn it. I would make mistakes. Everyone does. Your strategy for the turnaround has to assume you will make mistakes, and have multiple tiers of success so that you can achieve different levels of success depending upon mistakes surprises, and shocks.

    THE PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-04-07 14:54:00 UTC

  • THE FOUR STANDARD HOME DESIGNS a) Hot or Temperate Climate: Defensive, Suburban,

    THE FOUR STANDARD HOME DESIGNS

    a) Hot or Temperate Climate:

    Defensive, Suburban, Urban

    One floor, Double-walled, air-gap or insulated, brick or concrete block, with exterior stucco, interior plaster, in traditional courtyard design, with tall interior facing windows, with interior-facing roof, with downspouts (filtered) feeding central cistern (water pool).

    Minimum interior wet-walls, Traditional under-window steam heat, off traditional boiler, off natural-fuel iron stove. Every civilization discovered it. Any man can build it. And it doesn’t get any better than that. Start with one building, add a wing at a time, until you have a donut. Main, kitchen, dining. Wing left bedrooms. Wing right Living Room and Office. Wing Main Entry, Parents/Grandparents Apt (or workshop or shop)

    b) Temperate climate

    Territorial views. Non-defensive (security through remoteness)

    Reverse the Donut. Cross Design. Mix of one and two floors. Maximum External glass. Main house kitchen, living vaulted ceiling. Right arm, entry and storage. Left Arm Dining. head-arm, Upstairs master suite, downstairs Children’s bedrooms.

    c) Cold Climate:

    Cube. Raise it. (“Medieval Keep design”) Full basement, only half underground, first floor windows > man-height off the ground.

    9′ ceilings, tall windows, defensive shutters. Basement storage, main food formal living dining, second bedrooms and family space, third master suite in roof with dormers.

    d) Hard Freeze Climate / “modern tents’.

    Cottage. Stick houses are cheap, can be insulated like hell, and resist earthquakes. But they are ‘cottages’ not ‘houses’ and certainly not defensible, or durable keeps. And they have no sound dampening or thermal mass.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-30 11:57:00 UTC

  • Dear Media Companies. Entertainment is a fashion business. As specialization inc

    Dear Media Companies.

    Entertainment is a fashion business.

    As specialization increases and cost of production of content decreases, the value of capital and management decreases.

    What does this mean? Media companies (channels) have short life spans.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-03-30 08:01:00 UTC

  • The Formatting of Posts

    THE FORMAT OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF POSTS Note: See this update instead: https://propertarianinstitute.com/2017/11/27/newbie-information-possible-criticisms-and-post-format-cues/ 1 ========================== THIS MEANS I WROTE IT FOR YOU TO READ AS AN ARGUMENT (this cues you to important stuff) And this is the body text here. –“this is quoting someone else”– ***this is quoting myself*** … this … … is a … … … series that you might want to learn. 2 =========================== this doesn’t have header so it’s just a record from elsewhere or quick thought or observation, or a work in progress. 3 =========================== (this doesn’t have a header, is in parenthesis and in all lower case, which means it’s possibly something to ignore … because it’s not an argument.) 4 =========================== (diary entry) this is something I wrote for myself that is unfiltered, and likely includes very personal feelings of my own, or on the state of my thinking, and not something that you will probably want to read unless the psychology that I operate under is of some interest to you or other. =========================== Closing: I work in public, partly to conduct experiments. I am personally open in public because this prevents people attributing psychological motivations to me that I don’t have. I create conflict in order to run tests. The purpose of running a test is to attempt to create a proof.

  • The Formatting of Posts

    THE FORMAT OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF POSTS Note: See this update instead: https://propertarianinstitute.com/2017/11/27/newbie-information-possible-criticisms-and-post-format-cues/ 1 ========================== THIS MEANS I WROTE IT FOR YOU TO READ AS AN ARGUMENT (this cues you to important stuff) And this is the body text here. –“this is quoting someone else”– ***this is quoting myself*** … this … … is a … … … series that you might want to learn. 2 =========================== this doesn’t have header so it’s just a record from elsewhere or quick thought or observation, or a work in progress. 3 =========================== (this doesn’t have a header, is in parenthesis and in all lower case, which means it’s possibly something to ignore … because it’s not an argument.) 4 =========================== (diary entry) this is something I wrote for myself that is unfiltered, and likely includes very personal feelings of my own, or on the state of my thinking, and not something that you will probably want to read unless the psychology that I operate under is of some interest to you or other. =========================== Closing: I work in public, partly to conduct experiments. I am personally open in public because this prevents people attributing psychological motivations to me that I don’t have. I create conflict in order to run tests. The purpose of running a test is to attempt to create a proof.

  • Common Shareholders Are Not Demonstrably Owners

    COMMON SHAREHOLDERS ARE NOT OWNERS OF ORGANIZATIONS Ownership: control. Ownership (control) of WHAT? Ownership denies others use, consumption, transfer, and fruits. So what ownership do shares actually convey? RESIDUAL FRUITS. Shareholdership in practice provides a limited ownership to residual capital.

  • Common Shareholders Are Not Demonstrably Owners

    COMMON SHAREHOLDERS ARE NOT OWNERS OF ORGANIZATIONS Ownership: control. Ownership (control) of WHAT? Ownership denies others use, consumption, transfer, and fruits. So what ownership do shares actually convey? RESIDUAL FRUITS. Shareholdership in practice provides a limited ownership to residual capital.

  • Can Vancouver, Bc Become A New Silicon Valley?

    It’s unlikely. (Spoken as someone who has purchased a Canadian tech company)
    1. Canadian work ethic and 100 hour weeks at startups are incompatible.
    2. Employment regulations place too high a burden on small businesses.
    3. Shareholder requirements in Canada are too burdensome for high risk opportunities.
    4. Consumer banking in Canada is exceptional but commercial banking is like dealing with the government – depressing, incompetent, and ignorant.
    5. The VC community (if you want to call it that) is not competent in tech – better in mining and resources.
    6. The university system has no peer to California or NY/Boston
    7. Canada lacks sufficient population to produce sufficient engineers, capable of taking sufficient risks. At present it takes 500M people in a market to produce competitive intellectual work products at the level of global powers.

    https://www.quora.com/Can-Vancouver-BC-become-a-new-Silicon-Valley